Negation is a term used to describe the phenomenon of flipping the colonial dualism between emotionalism and rationalism present in Breton’s surrealism. Instead of classifying rationalism as good and emotionalism as negative, Breton used negation of the Eurocentric description of the world to instead say that emotionalism is, in fact, good and rationalism is bad. Negation can appear as a way to empower a subjugated people, but some surrealist writers felt that negation simply reversed the European model of describing European and African persons because the Eurocentric paradigm of the world still existed within Breton’s surrealism. Colonized persons created many forms of political and cultural struggles in order to fight against the idea of simply negating this Eurocentric model, and sought new ways to define and place themselves within the world.
Negation quotes:
“p.178 “The sickness within Caribbean poetic consciousness, which desperately aims to assume possession of itself is drawn outwards by a cultural system founded on the negation of individual characteristics, will vanish only when the colonial system itself is shattered and the colonial structures are replaced with human structures.”